Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas Collection

by Beth

I'm not much of a collector. Oh, I've started collections before: My mom used to buy us Precious Moments figurines for Christmas every year but after awhile, we all had so many, we really didn't want any more *g* As a teen, I tried to collect music boxes until I realized how expensive a hobby that was (although the ones I have hold a special place in my heart!) I'm not really much of a 'saver' and have no problems tossing things out that hold no use to me. But there is something I've collected over the years, items that threaten to take over my house every Christmas:

Christmas books!

Children's Christmas books to be exact :-)

This obsession...er...collection started innocently enough. I wanted a special gift I could get for my kids each year, something they could take with them when they moved out that could be used or passed down to their own children. My first thought was to get them each an ornament. Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding ornaments I actually liked well enough to spend money on *g*

So I came up with the idea of buying them each a Christmas book. My hope was that they would save their books and be able to pass them down to their own children someday. I have to admit, I love buying this gift each year! I get such a kick out of taking the books out and displaying them as part of our Christmas decorations and I always re-read my favorite ones.

I honestly love these books so much, I almost don't want the kids to take them! I'm sort of hoping they'll want to leave them with me until they have children who can appreciate them *g*

Some of our favorites are: A version of The Night Before Christmas with pictures by Mary Englebreit

Are You Grumpy Santa? about poor Santa getting grumpy after a bad day

Merry Un-Christmas, about how special an ordinary day would be if the other 364 days of the year were Christmas

Olivia Helps With Christmas, about a little pig with a big imagination who helps her family get ready for the holiday

So far this year I've bought: It's Christmas, David! about a mishcevious boy who's always being told "No" and I See Santa Everywhere - about a boy who thinks Santa is stalking him year 'round (but only to check to see if he's naughty or nice) *g*

Do you have any Christmas collections? Any items you buy every year for your kids or someone else on your list?

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107 comments:

I don't really have any real Christmas collections. I do love to shop for ornaments and I saved a few wooden ones from my childhood. I wish I had saved all the old ornaments for the memories. I also have quite a few stockings I've picked up over the years(mostly from when I stayed a relative's home during Christmas.)

Hi Beth, what a lovely collection you have there and a great legacy to hand down to future generations.

We have quite a few Christmas books, but I'd say we have more of a collection of Christmas DVDs, with everything from How the Grinch stole Christmas to The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Polar Express. We also collect Christmas carols by many different artists--the old favourites and a few that are in pretty bad taste, such as Elvis (Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me) and Neil Diamond. But we love them anyway!

I love getting all these out and playing them. It helps the Christmas spirit last all of December.

What a lovely post and a lovely idea, Beth - we may have to steal that one!

I don't have a Christmas collection per se, although we do collect ornaments from all the places we travel to. That makes decorating the Christmas tree a real pleasure as it's also a walk down memory lane.

I love the Night Before Christmas and have a first edition of it, that I got for a present one year. Hubby has a pop-up version that is awesome.

I usually buy my nephews a Christmas book and ornament. My sister and mother have bought my children an ornament every year since they were born so over twenty years later their ornaments cover most of the tree.

Love it, Beth! I do the same thing. We have a narrow shelf that runs around our family room and I fill it with the books. The covers are so gorgeous! My favorites are Tosca's Christmas, Winnie-the-Pooh Christmas, Merry Christmas Strega Nona, The Animal's Christmas Carol, Truffle's Christmas, and Lauren's Christmas Star (my middle daughter is Lauren).

I also line up all my Christmas romance in one special place so I can just grab one when I have a moment.

I have a collection of Santas that go up on the mantle each year. And, of course, the ornaments that have stories connected to each one (otherwise why buy it?). But I love your collection of children's books. I bought books for my kids for every holiday - Christmas, Easter, Halloween...but I don't know what happened to them. Perhaps they got read to death. I thought I was finished with my shopping, but I may have to dash out and pick up Merry Christmas David. I know the perfect home for it.

I love ornaments and have many. My mom buys me a new one each year and I love it. I've been able to get the white house ornament the past several years (either as a gift or bought myself) so I've a small collection of those now. I've also more Holiday CD's than necessary. Though I never planned on it being a collection. ;) I've disallowed myself to buy anymore (I've enough holiday songs to go days without repeating a version).

Hi, Beth. I used to collect angel figurines and teapots all year 'round, but haven't done so in quite awhile. Shary loves dogs and puppies, so, since I buy her an ornament every year, I've bought puppy ones for the last couple of years.

It does seem like every few years there is a theme to gifts. One year my sis, her daughters, and I all gave and received CDs. Another year it was slippers. Another was pajamas.

My sister's family always buys her "useless" kitchen tools for Christmas. She has drawers full of them. They are "neat things" that LOOK useful, but they just take up space when a spoon, for example, could do just as good a job.

I collect angels. However, since my mother's passing three years ago, I inherited her snowman collection. Year-round I collect stemware. AND from the time I was a little girl until now with my children and grandchildren, a new ornament is always in the stockings to add to our collection. I still have ornaments from when I was little.

Isn't it funny how many memories are tied to ornaments? I have a few from my childhood and we have some from my husband's grandmother. They're so special! I also have the knit stocking my mom made - she's knit a stocking for all of her kids, our spouses and all the grandchildren *g*

Hi Beth! I have two Christmas collections, well kinda, lol! Every year my kids each get a new ornament and my hubby and I get one together. So thats one collection. The other one is few ceramic decorations my Mom and I made years ago. Aside from that my best friend and I have started giving each other a certain gift every year to build our collections. Mine is Precious Moments and hers is Snowbabies.

What a lovely post and a lovely idea, Beth - we may have to steal that one!

Steal away! It's so much fun shopping for Christmas books *g* I also buy one each year for my youngest niece and nephews. The only problem is I keep forgetting to write down all the ones I've bought and have gotten doubles :-)

Love the idea of buying ornaments from your travels! What a great way to remember your trips *g*

I used to collect Christmas stamps, but now I've concentrated on collecting cat stamps and I'm trying to fill one small stamp album with space stamps. Of course there are probably at Christmas themed cat stamps, although I haven't seen any of those yet. Of course, I would be happy if I would see ANY STAMPS AT ALL on envelopes, not just some white sticker with the date and the price of postage.

Lovely post, Beth! I have a Christmas book collection too. Some of my favorites are The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski, and Winter Lights: A Season in Poems and Quilts by Anna Grossnickle Hines, which celebrates all the witer holidays and is illustrated by the most gorgeous quilts made by the author specifically for this book.

What a darling post, Beth. I love the idea of collecting Christmas books. Wish I'd thought of it.

I do collect Nativity scenes, many of which are wooden or resin, very kid-friendly, so the children can play with them. One of the most interesting is a black Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. It's interesting because, being Middle Eastern, they would've been dark skinned.

We have this, and I love it! Did you know it's also a movie? I saw it for rent at the movie rental store the other day. But I didn't get it---I didn't want a bad movie version to ruin a wonderful book, do you know what I mean? Has anyone seen the movie?

Beth, what a cool collection! There's nothing we buy every year, but the boy had several Christmas picture books, which I refused to allow him to throw away (my hypothetical grandchildren may want them someday). They're in storage because they're embarrassing to have in a teenaged boy's room.

We do try to buy Christmas ornaments when we go on vacation. The dh and I started this when we walked into a glass shop on Savannah's River Street a month before our wedding.

We honeymooned in San Francisco, and there was a Christmas shop on Pier 39. We have glass balls from Bar Harbor, Maine, and Bellingham, Washington, a whale and a sea turtle from Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts, a miniature of the Hatteras Light and a turtle and a caterpillar made with jingle bells from the NC Outer Banks, a Santa from a little town in Colorado, a bear from the Colorado RenFest, and a polar bear from the Denver Zoo (we have relatives in Colorado).

There are others but none from the UK. If we ever manage to get back there, I will insist on something that can be hung on the tree, whether or not it officially is an ornament.

We also have ornaments or decorations commemorating each of our dogs. I have the USS Enterprise and USS Voyager and, I think, the Millennium Falcon as well as an assortment of super-heroes, which the boy displays with great care every year.

Last Christmas, as we were decorating the tree, I commented that I should tag those ornaments from vacations so the boy would know where they came from when we were gone. His response? "That's okay. I don't care much about that."

Gillian, I'm envious of your shelf! I have my books on the piano, on a pretty bench and on the end tables. But I need more room *g*

We have one book with my youngest daughter's name but nothing for the other two. But I did get my older daughter Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas because she's all about fancy and Loren Long's Drummer Boy for my son the drummer :-)

I may have to dash out and pick up Merry Christmas David. I know the perfect home for it.

Donna, we adore the David books. The first one was No, David! I used to volunteer at my kids' school when they went to the library and read books to them and I had to read No, David! every week. They loved it *g*

What a wonderful blog, Beth! The only "Christmas collection" I have is that I purchase the Holiday Barbie ornament every year. I have every years' dating back to 1996. And I'm very particular about where I put them on the tree. Since my daughter is 6 (and loves Barbie), she loved helping me hang them this year. Hopefully she'll still be interested in them later on so I can pass them down to her. :) Merry Christmas!

I don't have any Christmas collections but every year I buy an ornament for each of my boys. I usually try to find something related to our family vacations. This year when we stopped in St. Thomas during our cruise, I bought sand dollars that were painted with Christmas scenes. When they both move out, I'm going to have to buy more ornaments for the tree.

Cath, I love angel ornaments. A friend gave us one of those beautiful tabletop angels one year, and I thought about starting a collection, but we really don't have enough flat surfaces that aren't in use for it to be practical.

Two of the angels on our tree are papier mache left from my childhood (there were six originally, but the wing area tends to break off). Each has an instrument.

LOL, Laney! That's so funny that you were all on the same wavelength with your gifts *g*

I'm cracking up over the 'neat looking' kitchen gadgets because my husband was just complaining about all of my kitchen items and how they take up so much space. He's right but I can't part with any of them! What if someday I need that third soup ladle? ;-)

I'm a SNOWMAN Freak! I'll admit it I love snowmen..Socks sheets, shirts, toys, you name it and I most likely own it. My daughter who will turn 3 the day after Christmas even goes around singing Frosty the Snowman. So each year I go out and look for that special snowman to bring home and add to my collection. This year it happened to be the hallmark collection Frosty since it reminded me so much of my daughter. It's always a great sight at Christmas to see my hubby's face when he has to take the 7 tubs of Snowmen down...LOL

Beth, what a lovely tradition! And how wonderful that you're already plotting another generation of readers. One of the wonderful things about my cruise was that so many people were clearly having a wonderful time curled up with their books (I saw the occasional Kindle but most of these people were reading the old-fashioned paper and print versions). Restored my faith in the reading public!

What a great idea. I wish I had thought of it. I do the ornaments lol. It started with an uncle who both both my girls ornaments but he stopped a few years back which is sad I think but I also got them ornaments and still going strong. My oldest is married and took hers with her and loves them as much as I do. I still have my 23 year olds until probably next year but luckily I still will have enough to fill a large tree lol. (I do have a couple of storage bins of children's books though for them to eventually take. I always overbuy when it comes to books!)

Gannon, we have a dancing Santa that belonged to my parents (I think he maybe plays a recorded song, but I'm not sure), and we have a small British Santa figuring and a small Scandinavian one. The dh's sister made a big, stuffed Santa who sits on top of the stereo speaker every year.

I don't really do much collecting now unless you count books. When I was younger I used to collect snow globes. Every year for Christmas my mom would buy me a new one. I don't collect them anymore because I simply don't have the room for them. I do still have all of the ones from when I was a kid. I don't think I could ever get rid of those.

You and me both, Catslady - lol! I always told my kids I'd buy them as many books as they wanted *g* And when they were little, I was always on the lookout for picture books I could read to them. We still have quite a collection on teh shelves :-)

Ooh! Children's Christmas books! What a nice tradition! When I was really little, I received a delightful children's Christmas book one year that I totally treasured. I still have it tucked away somewhere.

I haven't any Christmas collections but I do try to add an age appropriate book or dvd that I've enjoyed to kids on my gift giving list.

My Christmas Collection is memories. My husband and I take photos and videos of our children in their PJ's opening up the gifts, plus the all important Christmas Tree shot filled with gifts underneath. Our family lives 3-4 hours away and usually we spend Christmas by ourselves. So the collection is not just for us, but for those who cannot be with us on that great day.

I've started several collectionsover the years: Santa figures & angels, but let my interest lapsea few years back.

Books are something I've given mychildren, & now my grandchildren, every year. A few years ago, I readabout someone's tradition of havinga birthday cake for Baby Jesus. Weadopted this custom and each yearI now give the family a b-day caketo further this practice.

My main Christmas collection is Christmas books. I have one full shelf, double stacked of Christmas anthologies, another shelf of children's books, another shelf of novels, and a whole big box of Christmas books with no where to put them. I have already added about 10 more this year.

Hi Beth :-) I'm sneaking in late, but love your post. What a fun idea, collecting books! And how odd for a writer *snicker*.

I collect unicorns and dragons in real life, and my unicorn collection has spilled over to Christmas, with a number of ornaments that have been gifted to me over the years.

and I discovered this year when I was unpacking the Christmas decorations that I seem to have started collecting stockings, since we have TONS of the suckers of various decoration and type. Totally strange LOL. I decided to hang them all around the house and my oldest daughter asked if we had a couple dozen new people moving in for Christmas morning *g*

I decided to hang them all around the house and my oldest daughter asked if we had a couple dozen new people moving in for Christmas morning *g*

LOL! Does one have my name on it? If so, I'll get the first plane out today ;-)

My kids each have two stockings - one here (I made counted cross stitch stockings for the older two and bought one for the youngest but am still on the lookout for a counted x-stitch one to make her *g*) and knit ones at my mom's. The knit ones hold a lot more. They really stretch :-)

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